


The Trial of Lancelot

by Larathia



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larathia/pseuds/Larathia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A twist of time comes full circle, and old knights and older fae must choose where they stand. Original work based as much as possible on traditional works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Misty Night

Street lights illuminated the evening fog into ethereally silver fingers grasping at the hem of his coat, boot heels tapping on the concrete. Part of him, the part that never seemed to change, saw ghosts and fae swirling the mist, that edge of magic that seemed so wholly gone from the world. The rest, that had come to adapt, knew the eddies in the mist came from exhaust vents in the nearby walls and a slight breeze from the docks, the harsh silver hue from the cold flourescence and nothing else. A hand raised, a brief _flicker_ of will, and for a moment a wisp gathered itself from the fog and flickered faint cold candleflame, here and there, beckoning _follow me_.

He did, of course, smiling ruefully to himself for being unable to resist conjuring it in the first place. He did miss the magic. Not the terror that had come with it, but the wonder...certainly the wonder. The wisp flickered before him, a light that the adapted part of his mind saw as a lighter's brief flicker, or a reflection off a passing car bumper, or a neon sign's unsteady light but he knew the truth. Just this once he knew the truth, faded but not vanished entirely.

It was a somewhat comforting thought as the wisp led him to the understated door of _a strip club. Why am I not surprised._ A hand raised to knock on the door, a rough businesslike voice in answer. "Let's see some ID, kid."

It was, at least, a real ID, produced from a slim cardholder in his pocket, held up to the grille. _You'd think he'd learn. Do any of us?_ but that was a rather depressing idea to contemplate overmuch, and he let it go as the grille slid closed with a heavy clack, and the door was hauled open by a man who needed only a faint touch of illusion to pass for a quite respectable ogre. _We're always drawn to the edges_. Hands in his coat pockets, resisting the urge to add that touch of magic, he made his way down narrow stairs into a more tobacco-laden fog, and a heavy drumbeat that was almost tribal until the screeching voice of an underage pop singer overlaid it and infused survival's heartbeat with the reek of uncontrolled hormones.

He didn't spare any attention for the dancer on her pole, but she made an excellent distraction. One hand emerged from its pocket, touching the smoky haze; a half-visible smoke-imp gathered, bowed, led him through the haze. Toward a table on the back dais, somewhat raised above the other tables so that the stage was fully visible, and the man seated there, a bottle of beer on the table before him. He didn't bother with a greeting, but simply took a seat as if this had all been arranged somewhere, somewhen, and he hadn't been forced to use most of the tricks in his repertoire to track the man down.

"Merle," drawled the man, leaning back. "What a surprise. Have a beer, it improves the dancing."

"Lance," returned Merle in kind. "You know better than that. As I should have known to check the clubs first. You never learn."

"Nor do you," shrugged Lance, somewhat annoyed. "I saw your smoke-imp. One of these days someone's going to _notice_ you pulling shit like that."

Merle smiled. "And do what?" he asked. "No one would believe him. Not anymore. There is no magic." He waved a hand at the stage. "Just that. God in Heaven, it's awful."

Lance slanted an amused look toward Merle at that. "Now, see, that's what got you into trouble. You go around ignoring the ladies, and then one of them doesn't _let_ you ignore her, and the next thing you know -"

"-You're up on charges of treason to the Crown," finished Merle. Losing patience, he withdrew a small pin and set it on the table. It was a beautiful piece of work, red and white enamel surrounded by gold filigree; three red diagonal slashes across a field of gleaming white, held in the claws of a golden lion crowned.

Lance stared at the pin as if the thing had been dipped in poison. "You. have _got_. to be kidding. No."

Merle let it stay there, lit by the table's half-melted candle. "He has returned. _She_ has returned."

"And your point is?" growled Lance, reaching for the beer bottle himself now, as if for a lifeline. "I'm not exactly welcome."

" _Welcome_ doesn't enter into it. They're still children. I haven't even found her yet, though I've sensed the ripples in the ether. She's alive, Lance. She's returned." Merle nudged the pin toward Lance, just a bit. "It's time. Can you do it?"

"Do I have a choice?" sighed Lance, reaching out to take up the little pin, fastening it at the lapel of his coat. " _Someone_ has to protect her. God knows _he_ never had time for it." Getting up, he left a tip on the table and headed for the doors, leaving Merle to trot quickly after him. Up the stairs and out into the misty night.

"Can you let her go?" asked Merle seriously. "Can you find her, guard her, bring her to him, and let her go?"

Lance stared down at the smaller man, mouth twisting sourly. "You're no more the voice of God than I am, Merlin. I'll do the best I can, but if he can't learn from his mistakes then don't ask me to. Destiny doesn't govern _everything_. He can choose to be less of a self-righteous prick this time." But behind the angered words was an old pain. "She was sorry. She regretted it. She may not remember that she wanted it all undone, but I do. I'll find her...guard her, bring her to him. Just do me the favor of...teaching him better."

"He _trusted_ you," snapped Merlin. "He _trusted_ you, Lancelot, with everything he loved most. You want me to teach him _better_?"

"Yes," said Lancelot, turning away. "She took second place to his dreams, for all he made her their foundation. Build Camelot on sandstone and it can't do anything but crumble. Again. Do your damn job...and I'll do mine."

Merlin sighed as Lancelot strode off into the mist, just one more soldier in the night. _Honor accrued to the finest of soldiers, but times change_. Reaching out with his mind, finding himself unobserved, his arms streched out wide and became owl's wings, flying silently off into the night.


	2. Moving Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting his adopted mother, the Lady of the Lake...

The training had gone well, not that Lance had _really_ expected there to be any problems. Weapons had always fit his hands as if he were born to use them, and several centuries of combat experience would show, even if one _were_ limited to the tactics and weapons currently granted the constabulary - sorry, police force.

More interesting to Lance than flipping other trainees (and trainers) ass over teakettle were the classes on ethics. Not because any of it was unexpected, per se. He'd been in America since the colonial days, he felt he had a fair idea how they thought about things. _You sit in stuffy classes and you're taught what to do and what not to do, and because you wear less armor and carry smaller weapons, you see yourself as less than the army soldiers. And they agree with you. But you're the ones that have gone far beyond anything Arthur tried to build, while the foot soldiers have lost their way without the knights to show them the path._ He sat, politely, through the required sensitivity training, and harassment training, and tried not to smile too much (it offended the women running the courses). _Medieval_ was an insult, and it should be - he just found it terribly amusing that for all their talk of chivalry as an ideal, he remembered how novel an idea it was in his youth to say that if the lady objected one should _refrain_ , even if one had just gone through hell and high water to rescue said lady from danger.

_You take it as read that of course a gentleman does not force a lady's consent,_ he mused, thinking about it while hauling furniture into a house. His house, for now. _But never seem to think that the reason it was said so often was people still tended not to remember._ Ah well. Times changed. Strip clubs were one of the better changes, in his view. Women voluntarily and legally dancing around naked for money? Times changed in interesting ways.

And now he was moving into a small ranch house across the street from _her_ , and trying not to think too hard about it. Thankfully, furniture weighed a lot and was bulky as hell, and after smashing his hands into the doorframe a few times he remembered well enough to focus on the task at hand. Nothing fancy, really. Lance, like the other survivors of what was now known as Camelot, had learned not to need much. There was just enough furniture to make the house look...well, _furnished_. Just enough so that visitors (you always had to plan for visitors even if you hated them) would see nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to comment on. Lance found the invention of lightweight alloys and plastics a godsend, not to mention synthetic fibers. And moving companies.

And then...and then it was all done. Neatly arranged chairs, endtables, coffee tables, lamps...everything needed to give the impression of a stable, normal life. He sat in one of the chairs, watching _her_ house across the street...until he realized he'd been doing it for hours, still as a statue. With a growl he pushed himself to his feet, to the door, to the car. This was going to be a real _bitch._

_If America has a problem, it's the size,_ he sighed, driving one-handed through the night. Roads that went on for tens of miles without so much as a curve in them were just...unnatural. Driving hundreds of miles to reach a _lake_ was...cutting the only lifeline he really had left, but _she_ needed him. Merlin was a lot of things, but a liar wasn't one of them.

He puled the truck over on the shores of a lake sometime past midnight, but ...it was a lake, and not a pond, and the waters were clear and cold. He walked up to the water, until his feet were half-covered in the waters of the shore. Pitching his voice to carry without being particularly loud, he said, "Mother, hear me."

No more was needed. The Lady rose from the water as if it were mist, the lake a gateway to her watery realm. Ageless and beautiful, one of the few fae to still hold contact with the world. She smiled at him, and held out her hands. "My dear prince," she said, her gown not so much brushing the lake's surface as becoming part of it. "You anticipated me."

Lance took her hands in his own with a smile. "That's good to know. Merle came to see me."

His mother's smile faded somewhat. "Yes, I know," she agreed. "He's been tracking down all the survivors. It's finally come full circle."

"He told me Guenivere - wait, what?" asked Lance, blinking. "What's come full circle?"

The Lady's delicate hand cupped Lance's cheek, a motherly-affectionate caress. "My power of Sight is rooted in the world," she said. "I see no farther ahead than a few decades at the most. Merlin can see for centuries - and seeing it, can affect it. Morgaine cannot see the future at all, and so is most free to affect the present; both strongest and weakest. Now that the time has come I can see what Merlin has done."

Lance held his peace, frowning. It would make sense soon enough. 

"Merlin cast souls from this time into the world you and I knew," said the Lady, gentle and sad. "And so knew they would return. What he has set you to guard is not Guenivere reborn, but Guenivere as she was meant to be, before he interfered with her life. Through you he will interfere again."

"Interfere," Lance echoed, heart heavy. Muscles that hadn't felt the strain before, took the opportunity to remind him of all the furniture he'd moved.

"They are who they were, my dear prince," said the Lady gently. "Arthur will want to build his kingdom. Men and women will be drawn to him."

Heavy? Leaden, more like. "But the world has changed so much...."

The Lady of the Lake brushed cool fingers through Lance's hair, an old gesture. "You helped him before, for Guenivere. Merlin is counting on that. Arthur will not succeed without you."

Lancelot wanted to say _to Hell with Arthur_. He wanted to say, _to Hell with Camelot_. It hadn't been an ambition of his. Only to be Guenivere's knight, only to be _hers_ , and now with her returned to the world, to _him_ , the memory of what it had all cost and how it had all ended was newly vivid in his mind. He wanted to say a lot of things, but somehow his throat refused to work and he couldn't say anything at all. He'd do it all again. He'd _have_ to do it all again, for Guenivere.

The Lady's arms, his mother's arms, moved to encircle him, a protective affection, a safety and a welcome that might someday be irresistable. She understood; she always understood. When he drew back again, she pressed the hilt of a sword into his hand.

He didn't understand at first, and then took a closer look. "...Galehaut?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Full circle," said the Lady softly. "Your choices helped to build the Round Table. Your choices preserved it. And your choices set the time of its ending."

"Galehaut was the better king," said Lance shortly. "...Mother, I -"

"Will have to choose, my dear prince," said the Lady softly, and sank down into the waters without so much as a ripple.

Lancelot held Galehaut's sword up to the moonlight, and sighed. Trust a fae to answer the question you didn't ask, and not answer the one you had.


	3. Old Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse of Guenivere, and the return of an old....is friend really the right word?

She was, he had to admit, a beautiful child. Not that he'd _really_ expected to find it to be any different, but perceptions of beauty had changed so much over the centuries. He'd wondered if he would find her ordinary, or plain, or unremarkable in this age of clear skin, clean hair, white teeth (Hell, _all_ teeth...) but no. Running around her parents' front yard in muddy jeans with butterflies sewn on, and little pink shirts with frilled sleeves...she was still beautiful.

Not, he was relieved to realize, that he was tempted to fondle children. Centuries of life had instilled a broader sense of time and a degree of patience he just hadn't had, when old age was thirty or so. He saw the promise of a breathtaking woman in the child who played so freely, and a mere ten, fifteen years was not so long to wait at all. 

Nor was he all that surprised to find her such a tomboy. His Guenivere...well, she'd never really quite *gotten* traditional roles, though she could put on a good show. _She'll be much happier this time around._ This time around, when if Arthur took another woman to his bed she could do something useful about it. _He'd better not._

It was during such ruminations that someone knocked at his front door. Truly _knocked_ , which was rare; not the brisk rap of Gwen's mother asking if he could babysit or did he have shift, or another neighbor's pounding to drag him out about Those Pesky Boys that were usually doing something stupid like setting off firecrackers by someone's beloved pet, or his assigned partner coming to get him for patrol, but a ...knock. He got up to answer it, just to see if the local religious people really did go door to door.

What he _wasn't_ expecting was a face just a bit older than his own in every sense of the word, grinning and covered in blood and - just as stunned recognition got past the clinical assessment of injuries - fainting on his porch.

"... _Gawaine_?"

* * *

Field medicine was a useful hobby even when one was, functionally, immortal. Moreso in this age of heavily documented identities, when it was possible for hospitals to _notice_ things like injuries that recurred once every ten years as old enemies dropped by for a habitual fight-to-the-pain.

Not that Lance really had any, but he knew of some who did. Gawaine was at least a good patient, being unconscious, so Lance took his time about fishing out the bullets and generally cleaning him up. He didn't know who was keeping Gawaine alive - though he certainly intended to ask - but whoever it was, it would at least remove the threat of bleeding out from the possible outcomes.

He had time to finish, and even clean up his porch and the blood trail through the house, before his new guest opened his eyes. "....Hn. Never would've pegged you for Swedish furniture, Lance." Though tired and hoarse, the tone was teasing.

"I thought you died fifteen hundred years and more ago and you bleed on my porch to talk about _decor?_ " asked Lance, too stunned to be really angry. "You could have said hello. Any time in...God, _any time_ , try that. You know I would have welcomed you, first friend."

The Knight's eyes closed. "It took a long time before I cooled down enough to forgive you," he replied quietly. "Argravaine was an ass, I know, but he was my _brother_. And after you killed him...you didn't even go to Guenivere. You _left_ her in the abbey. He died for _nothing_....and after I'd cooled down from that, I took service with Merlin and he said it was better I leave you alone."

Lance didn't really have an answer to that, pulling up a chair by the table he'd laid Gawaine out on. After a few minutes of silence, he simply said, "I'm sorry." Some further thought, then, "Was it you, in 'seventeen?"

"Yeah," said Gawaine quietly. "Figured you'd be out a good while with the mustard gas, and wouldn't remember. How long were you flattened?"

"A few months," Lance conceded. "Whatever keeps us going had a hard time with that stuff. I thought I'd hallucinated you - you certainly weren't there when I'd come round."

"Got hit with shrapnel two days later," Gawaine replied with a wry smile. "Out for three weeks. Different hospital. And I didn't go looking for you. You'd make it out, after all, same as me."

"...Merlin, huh?" Lance mused. "So...why am _I_ watching little Gwen, and where did you get so shot up?"

"Merle asked you because out of the few of us left, no one would take more care of our Queen than you," said Gawaine seriously. "And...you're the best of us." That said with a degree of pain. "You've always been the best."

Lance accepted it for the statement of fact it was, understanding that it wasn't precisely a compliment. "So...you've been..."

"Dealing with Mordred," sighed Gawaine. "You want the story I can tell you, but I want something better than your kitchen table and water. You're a rotten host."

"Joyous Guard, this is not," drawled Lance, getting up. "Though...I suppose it could be. All right, up you get. You can have the bed if you want, just tell me what's going on."


	4. Faerie Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's more than one player on the board.

Gawaine was resting, which in Lance's vocabulary remained the polite way of saying he was sleeping off putting a major dent in the liquor cabinet. Sometimes, both men agreed, the old painkillers worked the best.

Lance had time to finish cleaning up the mess, and catch a shower, and find a change of clothes before the sun had quite set. Time enough to sit in his favorite chair, and watch little Guenivere playing with her friends in the yard across the street. Playing princesses, by the look of it, with little pink conical hats with glittery mesh veils trailing from the tips, and...well, a lot of pink and glitter, but they seemed happy enough with it. Lance wondered, watching her wave her 'scepter' with exaggerated regality, if it were all just a dream to her. Or if she remembered ever holding the real thing in her hands.

Probably not. What was the use of being reborn, if you had to remember everything about what had gone before? But it was still something of a wrench, to watch her as she 'knighted' one of her playmates, remember when she'd gifted him his own knight's blade. _It's not always a game._

The shadows were growing longer, and doing so somewhat faster than sunset strictly demanded. Lance wasn't sure what had alerted him, but trusted his instincts. He got to his feet, eyeing the deep shadow as he reached for the special bullet clips in his pockets, the ones he made himself. Silver and cold iron.

"There's no need for that," said a familiar voice from the tree that was the shadow's root. "If I'd wanted to pick a fight with you, I'd have killed her already."

Lance frowned in the voice's direction. "If you had the courage to fight a girlchild directly, Mordred, I doubt we'd be having this conversation. Come out before I put a few bullets in this tree. I _like_ the tree."

Mordred had, it seemed, happily abandoned his mortal half; sharp-featured, dark of hair and eye, he was almost the picture of a winterfae. Almost but not quite; he lacked the willow frame of such folk, being a bit broader and somewhat more heavyset. His features weren't quite as pale either, but they came close.

...The black and russet clothes of a thousand years and more ago were also a definite hint, as he seemed to take shape from the shadows themselves. A quick glance toward the children demonstrated that none of them were seeing, none were noticing, and Lance turned a darker frown in Mordred's direction.

"You came here to talk?" asked Lance. "So...talk."

Mordred raised a hand; human, Lance noted, and what an embarrassment Mordred must find it. "Mother wishes to make you an offer. Your non-involvement, for Guenivere."

Lancelot's jaw dropped. He couldn't help it. The offer was good enough that it had to be "Faerie gold. What's the catch?"

"No catch," said Mordred, shaking his head. Faerie glamour rolled off him in waves, beat on the simple defenses Lance used to see through them. "My mother has always wanted Arthur. Only Arthur. It's Merlin's meddling that has made all your troubles, and Merlin's meddling that would send that girl there to him again. You bend knee to the architect of your own undoing; we simply offer to remove the problem."

_So this is why Gawaine's been 'arguing with Mordred',_ Lance mused, watching the half-fae. _This is what's brought him to my door._ Because the offer was tempting. Better than tempting - it was reasonable. Nearly irresistable. 

"Hesitation?" asked Mordred. "Perhaps you find it too good to be true. Perhaps you feel she must go to Arthur again for the world to see some new wonder." He reached into his cloak, pulling out a token to hold out to Lance. "Merlin uses your love to his own ends; see who comes for you, that he hides from you. We need no such trickery."

Lance reached out to take up the token, turning it in his fingers. Carved black wood, polished and smoothed, an African style but the image was of a dragon. A black dragon, with gold-leaf eyes, and outstretched wings. _Gawaine mentioned a warlord._ "...Galehaut?" he asked, reluctant to believe it. "But he died, I know he died..." An old, old pain that, and not one he wanted to talk about with Mordred, of all people. "Your precious mother had too much of a hand in that."

"And she makes amends," Mordred replied smoothly. "He lives, as she lives," and his hand waved toward Guenivere and her playmates. "And can be sought, but not from her side." His figure started fading back into shadows. "Hold it and call, if you wish our aid in this."

Lance ran his fingers along the smooth black wood. _Galehaut._ He'd have to say this for Morgaine; she knew how to lay a bribe. But it _was_ a bribe; he knew that much. For this much to be offered, it meant a lot to her that he stay out of the conflict.

In fairness, he'd have to hear what Gawaine had to say when he wasn't bleeding on the porch. In fairness.

It wasn't the first time he had cause to wonder if he was the only one to have any idea what the word meant.


	5. Coffee in the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly friends, not exactly enemies, just awkwardness, coffee, and thunderstorms.

One of the things that immortality taught was patience. He'd never had much of it, in his youth - all hot temper and _now, now_ , as if the world would end if he couldn't have his way right when he wanted it. 

There'd been such a high price for that, such a terribly high price. But even that hadn't taught him patience - it had only taught him grief. And he'd shared that lesson around enough that there wasn't much high ground he could claim.

Gawaine had the bed, so Lance slept on the couch. Lightly, aware of the threat that came with knowing Mordred knew where you lived, but slept nonetheless. An old soldier's trick, that; to sleep where one could, because it might soon be in short supply. Around midnight, his partner on the force rapped at the door for their shift, and Lance settled the man with a strong cup of black coffee (wonderful stuff, that, the whole complicated morass of trouble the new world represented was just about worth it for _coffee_ even if it did taste like rancid horse's ass strained through a filter) while he got into uniform and belted on his service weapon.

Gawaine, naturally, slept through it all. Which was just as well.

Lance actually enjoyed late night patrols. It was a little bit like hunting, really, though he knew better than to draw the comparison in his partner's hearing. Conversation was minimal due to lost sleep, the streets were relatively quiet, and criminal activity on the whole was much closer to the way prey might seek cover in the woods than it was during daylight hours.

And you were only allowed light armor, a nightstick, and your service weapon. Sometimes, against much greater numbers and much bigger weapons. It was really quite hard to _avoid_ thinking of it like a sport at times. In warfare, after all, the idea was to outman and outgun your enemy as quickly as possible. Fighting at a disadvantage by _choice_...it had to be a hunt. Particularly since half the criminals wanted to run rather than fight anyway.

He'd done time on urban beats, but Guenevere's family had - naturally - chosen a relatively law-abiding suburb. By the time the sun rose and his shift ended, the evening had included nothing worse than a few very drunk drivers and one teen with too many energy drinks in him choosing a very poor method of celebrating a passed test.

By the time he'd finished fending off the kid's very strident mother, and his partner had dropped him off at his house, he found Gawaine had recovered at least enough consciousness to relocate to the couch. The morning sun shimmered on the knight as he slept, and Lance knew that meant magic. 

It probably also meant he'd relocated to be _in_ the sun, rather than to watch for Lance coming home, or be wakened if Guenevere came out to play. But it wouldn't last long; clouds were gathering, and Lance suspected the rain would wipe out Gawaine's chance for a quick heal right along with Guenevere's probable play times. He chose a chair, leaned back into it, and closed his eyes.

He still wanted that story, damnit.

~*~

"You're still a rotten host," spoken only half seriously, snapped Lance's eyes open; by the clock it was past noon now, and the darkness outside was because of the thunderstorm. Gawaine was up now, if only just, and looking around at Lance's sparse cabinetry. "Could really use some aspirin. Coffee. Come _on_ now."

"I'm not going shopping for more liquor," Lance replied blandly, getting up to provide the requested medications and get a pot brewing. "Guen's family have this idea that I'm a thoroughly respectable police officer. Cases of liquor won't help. Have a seat."

Gawaine obeyed, giving Lancelot a sort of closed-in look that he was almost surprised to realize he remembered quite well. It meant Gawaine was tempted to talk about something he knew he'd regret talking about. The way he wrapped his hands around the mug of coffee Lance provided only confirmed it.

Lance opted to busy himself making lunch for them, testing out the strange awkwardness in the air. He'd always thought of Gawaine as his friend, and right up until the end, that had been right. First friend, truest friend, the only one to stand back and not take sides, not get _between_ anyone.

And he'd paid for that by watching his brothers die while he'd refused to take the field. It was no surprise - not to Lance, not to anyone at the time - that the grief had driven Gawaine just a little mad. He'd charged at Lance, and they'd fought...

And really, Lance had thought the story ended _there_ , with Gawaine bleeding to death on the ground. He'd had other things to deal with at the time - a three way war, Guenevere calling it quits with _everyone_ \- and hadn't really given it any further thought until Gawaine turned up on his porch.

It was creeping up on him that an open bar, some free medical care and an "I'm sorry" honestly didn't begin to cover it. Lunch wouldn't bring the debt down either. He gave it a shot anyway, setting a plate down before his old - former? - friend that would've set a cafe to shame.

And then he sat down opposite Gawaine, and waited. He'd paid a high enough price to learn patience, might as well see if it was worth it at all.

Gawaine ate with the neat, savoring bites of someone who'd been living far too long on field rations, but his eyes never left Lancelot and weren't entirely friendly. Finally, he said, "Before I go into any details about anything, I want to know two things from you. Why are you here, and why, after killing my brother to get to her, did you _not_ rescue her the first time around?"

The way he said them, Lance knew those questions had been on Gawaine's mind for a very, very long time. So he knew 'here' didn't mean 'across the street from Guenevere' but 'alive at all'. 

Coffee mugs made great emotional shields.

"She didn't want to go, Gau," he said at last. Quiet, remembering the look on her face, the shock just setting in, grief around the edges. "She loved me, and she loved him, and everything he'd built, and...she never meant it all to break any more than I did. She stayed with the nuns because she believed that's what she deserved for all the deaths she'd...we'd...caused. I would've stayed with her, but - well, _convent_. And I'm not a monk and I'm not good for nuns, and she told me to leave her because it wasn't exactly a punishment if I stayed."

Gawaine sipped his coffee, using both hands presumably to avoid them accidentally throttling anyone, and nodded slowly. "God knows I'd have killed her if I'd visited," he said. "She did the right thing then. That helps a little." His attention sharpened on Lancelot. "Still doesn't explain you being here."

"I went...south," Lancelot admitted slowly, knowing Gawaine would know what he'd meant. His 'fits of passion', as they'd been called then, had been almost as legendary as his sword arm. Mania and melancholy, what the doctors now called being bipolar. "I don't remember much. I'm _told_ I answered your call and put a huge dent in Mordred's ambitions for mortal rule, but I have to admit it's fuzzy as hell to me. All I could think about was everything falling apart around me...and somewhere in there the Lady of the Lake took me home."

This got a genuinely blank look from Gawaine. "Wait. I thought that was just...storytelling, the usual _I don't know who my parents were so I'll make shit up_ approach. She's really your mother? What's her stake in all this?"

"Adopted," Lancelot corrected. "I gave you all my correct lineage, she'd looked it up. Ban of Benoic was my father, I just don't remember him. She found me in the aftermath of an attack by the shores of her lake and adopted me as a baby. You know how fae can get about small cute things. I grew up in her realm of Faerie."

"...Huh," was all Gawaine seemed to have to say to that. "I can see why you never said before. I'd never have believed you. Not back then. These days..." he shrugged. "I've seen a lot more of magic and the moods of faeries. So you're like Mordred now?"

Lancelot shook his head. "He's really half-fae. Saw him while you were sleeping. We'll get to that. I'm...adopted and blessed. Mostly because I don't think my mother can bear the idea of me dying, so she uses a part of her power to sustain me as if I were fae. As for her stake...in her eyes, she's my mother and I'm her son. The difference between summer and winter fae is pretty simple; Morgaine thinks of Mordred as her pawn. My mother would try to hand Merlin his ass in a handbag if she thought he was in the way of me being happy."

"...So you're a momma's boy of Faerie," said Gawaine blandly. "Damn, that explains _so much_." He raised his hand at Lance's frown. "No, give me a minute. You know Merlin never explains squat, Lance, this is a lot of pieces I needed." He straightened, winced. "Wish the sun had been out today." More carefully, he got up and moved to a chair by the window, watching the rain. "Give me a few, Lance. I've spent a long time thinking things that weren't true."

As requests went, Lance felt that was more than reasonable, so he busied himself cleaning up after the remains of lunch. He refilled Gawaine's coffee and his own, and took another chair so as to watch both his old friend and the falling rain. Water was always his mother's element, and rain was a taste of home.

"Merlin picked me up where you left me to die," Gawaine said at last, somewhat distantly. "Laid me on a stone...slab...and said I could die, or I could live to understand what had just happened and why, and if I lived I could see Camelot rise again. I have to tell you, Lance, that right just then I'd have said yes if he'd just offered me the chance to cut your head off. I think I see now why he didn't. But anyway, I said yes and...he put a shard of the sun into my heart. I didn't exactly get up off the slab right then and dance, but ...you know what it's like."

Lancelot just nodded. He did know. Being sustained by magic, when you weren't born to it like the fae were, was a little like being disconnected to and plugged into the universe itself, both at once and at a very high voltage. The body thrummed with new resonances as well as new strengths. When you got up, the first time, you were alien to yourself and the whole world was new. And no matter how long you lived, the sensation never really faded.

Across the street, the curtains parted in Guenevere's room, and the little girl set elbows into the windowframe, pouting at the rain outside it.

"I've been doing work for Merlin ever since," Gawaine continued, watching just as Lance was watching. "He's been shaping history from ...probably well before Camelot's founding. Sometimes I've had an idea why he asks something from me, but more often not." His attention turned fully toward Lancelot. "Galehaut is not Merlin's doing. I'm pretty sure it's Morgaine's handiwork, especially having him born in Africa. And not a nice part of Africa, either. Even relatively speaking."

Lance just nodded to that. "He wants me to love Guenevere, as I did before. Fight for her, because that means I'm fighting for Arthur. But not to get between them. That was how he positioned it to me. Second chance, to do it right."

"Galehaut's a distraction," Gawaine agreed. "And a good one. If Merlin really intends Arthur to rebuild Camelot, he's going to have a rough time beating a fully entrenched Galehaut. He won't be able to use the ugly weapons, he'd have to play by rules, and I'm pretty sure Galehaut already knows 'rules' and 'war' are two words only losers put together."

"We proved that wrong once before," Lance pointed out.

"No," Gawaine replied firmly. " _You_ proved it wrong. Arthur was _losing_ until you turned up to fight on his side. Merlin needs you and he knows it."

Lancelot got up then, and brought over the sword that his mother had handed him, and the pendant Mordred had given him. Galehaut then and now. He set them down in front of Gawaine. "Everyone seems to know it. If I leave here to go find him, Guenevere is unprotected. If I stay...I lose him twice."

Gawaine sipped his coffee and remarked, "Just curious, do you ever get tired of the world revolving around your love life?"


	6. Castles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The legends say Camelot will be restored - but do they *really* mean Cornwall?

Still holding the tokens of Galehaut, Lancelot returned to his seat. Looked out of the window to Guenivere's house, where the little girl was watching the rain that meant she couldn't play outside.

With all the time between then and now, you'd think someone in the know - any of the options, really - would have given him some advance warning. That they were coming back, that he'd have to choose...

Ignoring Gawaine's question, he posed one of his own. "Do you really think Arthur's going to _literally_ rebuild Camelot? I mean...there's a queen that might _possibly_ have some problems with someone trying to build a kingdom inside hers. The world's changed. He can't build a kingdom _now_. We've seen what happens when people try that."

Gawaine frowned. "What else would it be? CEO doesn't have the same ring as King."

Turning the token of Galehaut-now over in his fingers, Lance shook his head. "Not sure. I mean if Galehaut's out there now...?" He let the question fade, waiting for Gawaine's nod of confirmation, "And he's a warlord...maybe the new Camelot will be in Africa?"

Gawaine turned a bland look on Lance then. "Merle can be blind to social dynamics, Lance, I'll be the first to admit that. But there's no way he'd seriously try setting up a white couple as the saviors of _anywhere_ in Africa." But he paused, frowning, as something occurred to him. "Africa's a wealth of resources."

Lance nodded, holding up Galehaut's token. "Which the warlords control, and corporations need. And they're at least as lacking-in-grip as the old kings."

As Lance had done, Gawaine's gaze was drawn to the window, and the little girl pouting at the rain. Lance wondered if Gawaine had seen the little boy, the reborn Arthur, yet. He knew better than to ask. Gawaine did not change his mind easily.

"You know, the problem here is you're making sense right up until I factor in that Merlin's involved. That this is Arthur we're talking about, and Camelot," said Gawaine slowly. "And I'm having a damn hard time thinking of Camelot as a Fortune 500. Or any company needing Guenivere as such."

_Maybe Arthur will need her because it's her company,_ Lance realized with an almost guilty pleasure. This wasn't the old days. Guenevere had been intelligent, driven. She'd managed the affairs of Camelot effortlessly during Arthur's many campaigns. And that was _then_ , with what amounted to a sixth grade education and a lot of embroidery courses. What was that little girl capable of _now_?

Tendrils of an idea snaked through Lance's mind, but he kept his expression calm and blank. It could wait until Gawaine had decided whether to tell him what led him to faint on his doorstep. So he only said, "Trying to read Merlin's usually just an exercise in anger management."

It had been meant to be humorous. Instead, Gawaine gave him a speculative look. "You know, you've been really...even tempered, since I've been here. Meds?"

Lance shrugged. They had diagnoses for it now. Bipolar. Manic-depressive. Great fits of passionate energy, great pits of despair and self loathing. It was one part of the past he didn't miss _at all_ , anymore, though for a while he'd felt more than a bit dead. Or that might just have been because everyone else was. "A gift from my mother," he said quietly. "After...after, and she took me back to her realm to heal. It was definitely not one of my better...decades. She didn't like seeing me that bad, that it went on that long. There was a big ceremony and..." he shrugged. Faerie magic was not the easiest thing in the world to describe. It had _felt_ like all the love and all the pain had been shoved together, shoved against each other to create some kind of new, averaged-out temperament. For years he'd wondered if he'd ever know the feeling of love again; it had taken many more to realize he could love just fine, it was just the drama that had gone.

"Give my regards to your mother, then, next time you talk to her," said Gawaine. "You were always my best friend, Lance, but the way things kept exploding around and because of you did get tiring." Deciding something, he said, "Galehaut's taking over the diamond trade. Probably as a stepping stone; there's a lot of money in diamonds, but there's other wealth to be had. He wasn't the one that shot me. Some of his bodyguards did. I was just there to look, confirm it was him."

Lance just nodded. "How'd you get here before bleeding out?" he asked, then answered his own question. "Faerie."

Gawaine smiled briefly. "Yeah. The fae have an interest in you, and her," he nodded to Guen's house. "There are folds all over the nearby blocks. Summer and Winter could have ten thousand troops each here in half an hour. Winter's got the folds that go to Galehaut's territory, though."

Lance held up Galehaut's old sword, that his mother had handed him. "Winter controls them but Summer knows about them," he said. "Sounds like the fae are gearing up for major trouble."

"Agreed," said Lance. It would be a good decade before Guenivere and Arthur really entered the stage as players, but to fae that was a blink of an eye. And Galehaut was apparently already on the stage. In ten years' time he might be - 

Lancelot eyed Gawaine. "Watch him - only?"

Instead of answering, Gawaine eyed him right back. Judging. Weighing. "For now, yeah," he said. "He's entering things too soon. Unless he's meant to be a _major_ player when Arthur's old enough to act. Someone Arthur _has_ to deal with."

"Unless, of course, you remove him first," said Lancelot.

"If Merle's decided on that, he hasn't told me," said Gawaine, just as calmly. "But yeah. Potentially. If Galehaut's dead, he's not a threat to Arthur, or a distraction to you."

"It won't work that way," Lance promised grimly. 

Gawaine's smile was a wry, pained, _you think I don't know that. **me.**_ "I'll carry the message." Adjusting himself with care on the couch, he asked in an entirely different tone, "What do you think the new Camelot will look like?"

"Hopefully not an Austrian fairy-castle," sighed Lance. "Honestly, kind of done with castles."


	7. Debts Unpaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some, presented with an 'or', demand that it be 'and'.

Summer knew about them, but Winter made and kept them. The more Lance thought about it, the more he understood what Galehaut was, in the eyes of the winterfae.

He was _bait_. And the moment he left Guenevire's side, they'd move in...and probably take the girl prisoner. Killing her would be practical, save that it would set Lance against them and leave Merlin free to enact whatever vengeance he deemed fit. As far as Lance knew, no one actually knew _what_ Merlin was. Summerfae, winterfae, something completely other...Lance had come to accept that the world contained far more than men officially knew about, but Merlin kept secrets the way some hoarded money. Even the fae were wary of acquiring too much of his attention. He'd survived too long and too much.

But Guenevire, raised by the winterfae, would be a dangerous person indeed. It wasn't that they were _evil_ , as such. But the gentler emotions - love, mercy, gratitude - did not survive among them. The winterfae didn't deride these emotions; they simply neither had nor understood them. It was all weakness.

No. He couldn't leave her. Her parents wouldn't believe him if he told them their daughter was in danger of being kidnapped by faeries. And Gawaine was right. He was the best of the survivors; he'd been the best even before Camelot had _risen_. Leaving someone else to stand guard wouldn't help. Flying from the center of the US to any part of Africa was just...too long, too far, without the folds. And the winterfae might let him leave quickly, but they could untangle those folds quickly once he was there, and trap him.

That was, after all, the point, wasn't it? Morgaine wanted Guenivere out of the way, so that she could take Arthur for herself.

Lance rubbed the back of his neck. Guenevire was a _child_. She was worrying about school friends and holes in her favorite jeans and whether she got her math homework right. It took a faerie mind to see in that child the threat to a relationship that hadn't even begun yet.

Fifty thousand troops here in half an hour. But Lance knew how the fae thought. There would never be that many. The variety of folds were so that no matter what Winter decided was needed, no matter how short the notice was, the fae who was needed would be here quickly. 

"Your coffee's gone cold and the sun's down," said Gawaine, breaking his train of thought. "Trying to outsmart Morgaine? Give it up. She's had longer to plan than you."

"Not really," Lance pointed out. "You want the couch instead of the bed this time? Get morning sun?"

"Yeah, I think so," sighed Gawaine. "Trust the weather to be lousy when I need it most. Not that I think that's a coincidence."

"Of course not," agreed Lance mildly. "But I am glad to know you live, even so. It gives me an opportunity to repay my debt to you."

Gawaine gave him a flat look. "For killing my brother? Do you really think that's a debt that can _be_ repaid?"

Lance gave him a slow, deep nod; almost a bow. "Does that mean I should not _try_ , first friend?"

Gawaine's expression shifted to one of irritation; lips pursed, he looked away. "I wouldn't have come. But the shortest folds all led here. And I needed the help."

"You're welcome to my couch as long as you need it," said Lance. "And you can meet Guen. Just don't ...well, you know."

"Tell her we're both well over a thousand years old, and fairies are real and want to kidnap her?" asked Gawaine blandly. "She'd probably believe me, actually."

"There is really no good direction that can go though," Lance pointed out. "Whether she believes you or not."

"True," Gawaine sighed. "Go get ready for your patrol. Who's your partner, anyway? Any good?"

Lance laughed. "You cannot possibly be jealous of the man. Nor afraid for him. His family is Higgins. The local department prefers to use surnames, we haven't advanced beyond 'what, you French or something' and that I apparently live at a gym. But as a constable, he's not bad."

"Well if you're working tonight, he'll probably be here soon," said Gawaine. "I'll go hide in the back. In case he takes it into his head to ask why you have an injured guy on your couch."

"Much obliged," Lance agreed.

Gawaine walked with the care of the wounded toward the actual spare bedroom, which got lovely southern exposure but not the kind of direct morning sun he seemed to need. Lance finished his coffee, and got into uniform, thinking the problem over. 

He wasn't going to ignore Galehaut's presence. He knew that. He just...he owed that man, that soul, far too much. That was, of course, the point; bait wouldn't be bait if he weren't strongly tempted to take it. It didn't change that a debt was owed. A debt at least as large as the one he owed Gawaine.

He had a lot of such debts. It was just that _most_ of the people he owed them to were dead in the never-coming-back way.

Higgins' knock on the door was punctual and perfunctory, and Lance was ready for it. He stepped outside...and stopped. "Starting without me now?"

His partner nodded across the street - not, thank the spirits, at Guenivere's house, but to one next door. "Was coming to get you, and what did I see but this little fellow trying to climb in a window. Gave the family a startle, but no harm done."

Lance looked down into the face of a grinning winterfae. Fae came in all sizes and shapes, of course, and it often bore little relation to their actual power. But all Higgins saw was a dark haired child. And there were rules about what the constabulary could do to children. Lance kept his voice calm and his tone light as he asked, "Any ID on him?"

"Not a shred," said Higgins, leading the kid by not-too-unkindly shove toward the patrol car. "He'll spend a night in the cells, after we're done seeing his record. You ready to go?"

"Yeah," said Lance. "But I don't feel like spending all night with an underage smart mouth. Let's take the kid downtown first. Let them handle him."

Painted iron bars. _Iron_ bars. Alloys still counted as iron as far as fae were concerned; impure iron was still iron. The 'boy' lost his smile quickly. A fae surrounded by steel was a very unhappy fae. "How about I kill you both right here?" the 'boy' said, making it sound like bravado so that Higgins wouldn't take him seriously. He knew well enough that Lance understood reality.

Lance responded by taking the special clip from his back pocket. The one he'd made for dealing with fae. With _Mordred._ Not steel, these. Cold iron and silver. He let the boy get a good look at the clip - knowing that at that range the elf could probably smell the iron - and said, in professional calm, "How about you keep your mouth nice and shut?"

Higgins raised an eyebrow at him - the overt threat in loading a clip in front of a minor wouldn't look good. But when the boy did, in fact, shut his mouth, he opted for, "Yeah, let's get him to the station. Did you just forget your coffee tonight?"

Lance sighed. Winterfae had no concept of mercy, or kindness. This elf was going to take being locked all night in an iron cage as ...well, the punishment it was, just a bit more intense than the builders might have anticipated. There would be no escape in the folds while surrounded by iron. But it would still rate as better than dying. "Coffee sounds great. After we drop this kid off. You want to hand me the paperwork? I'll take dictation." Which was an apology for being 'hotheaded'.

The drive was quiet, except for Higgins telling Lance what to write on the incident report involving the fae-child. Apparently Higgins hadn't been downplaying it. The family hadn't even been awakened by the attempted breakin. What had woken them was Higgins turning on the car's lights - _all_ the car's lights - and shouting out his window at the boy to 'get out of there!'. The boy had not tried to run, and the residents had confirmed he wasn't their guest or child. Which allowed Lance to understand why Higgins had thought the display with the gun had been overkill; the boy hadn't - up to that point - been entirely cooperative. The child's murder threat was duly recorded as well. Higgins pointedly did not include mention of loading any clips. 

Higgins thought the kid had been doing this on a dare. Lance looked at the report and saw a sacrificial pawn. Winter was letting Lance know that it didn't just have the fastest route here, it was entirely prepared to use it. Use it, take Guenivere's entire neighborhood hostage if needed. This elf had been meant to be caught. Had probably waited until he saw the patrol car on the road to try 'breaking in'. And as much as the elf did not want to die, it would take its time in the cells over displeasing whoever had sent it.

 _Mordred, probably. A thousand years, still shit as a commander._ Winter had made its point. Doing things like this was Mordred's kind of overkill. The overkill that pushed the enemy into action when inaction would serve Mordred's cause better.

But it went smoothly. Completely smoothly. The 'boy' was processed and shut in a cell (though Lance noted the elf was trying very hard to stay in the exact center, as far from all the bars as possible) and they went back to their patrol. Higgins even bought him a large black coffee. Which he dutifully drank.

Go, and lose her. Stay, and lose him. Winter wanted this choice clearly delineated. Which, really, just made Lance quietly grit his teeth around the waxed cardboard cup and decide to hell with them all he'd fight for them both, as long as he could.

By the time he got back home he was far, far too buzzed with coffee to sleep. So he sat in the chair that let him watch Guenivere's house, and pondered plans.


End file.
